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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Article was created by Daniel Smith:Dan is an online marketing nomad. Specializing in social media and content creation. He consults remotely while travelling the world and living out of a backpack. Article posted on: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/ways-efficient-freelancer/

Working as a freelancer has many benefits, you work your own hours, you don’t have to worry about a nagging boss, you can work in your underwear.. the list goes on. One area of freelancing that’s tough though is maintaining efficiency.

As a freelancer, you become your own task master. This means you’re not only responsible for making sure you complete tasks, but just as importantly you need to determine which tasks are to be performed in the first place. For people who lack motivation and/or self-discipline, this can present a big problem. Combined with the numerous distractions a freelancer faces e.g. family/friends, favorite TV shows, temptation to sleep til lunch; you have a formula for incredible inefficiency. In this article we’ll look at the benefits of being more efficient and then some road tested ways of dramatically improving your efficiency.

Good reasons for being more efficient

Image source: somewhere
Establishing motivation is an important first step for any process. So before we delve into ‘how’ to become more efficient as a freelancer, lets look at ‘why’ you should become more efficient.
Take the fear out of deadlines: No doubt you’ve gained a few gray hairs and pulled numerous all-nighter’s in the process of meeting deadlines. Building efficiency will help better utilize time, meaning you can maintain your healthy head of hair and significantly reduce your red bull/coffee intake.
More profitable client base: Improving your efficiency will help make your client base more profitable in two ways. Firstly, you’ll learn to focus more time and energy into the clients that provide most value to you. Secondly, by shifting your attention to higher value clients you’ll create more time to take on more of the work that delivers higher value, and stop wasting it on clients who demand a lot and return little.
Stress reduction: As you become more efficient at what you do, you’ll feel more empowered with what you’re doing, and consequently your stress levels will drop considerably.
More time for the good stuff: You started out freelancing with dreams of being able to spend more time with your family/friends and enjoying your favourite activities right? Then your days got crammed with a million and one tasks and you don’t even know what you’re doing. Building efficiency will help get you back on track to finding your original dream.
Happier you, happier clients: As you take control of your days and start feeling a genuine sense of progress your overall happiness and satisfaction will lift immeasurably. A spin-off effect of this is that your creativity and work quality will also improve, which will lead to much happier clients.
Sound good? Of course it does. So the big question, how to do it?

1. Have goals

Photo by LarryLens
Goals are essential for staying motivated. They’ll give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning (and not the afternoon), and they’ll help guide you in setting tasks for yourself. So what goals should you set? There are two main kinds, financial and lifestyle. A lot of people put financial first, however if happiness and satisfaction are important to you, I’d recommend starting with lifestyle. Think about what you want your lifestyle to include: how much free time you’ll have, the material items you’ll have, when you want to retire etc. Once you’ve got that figured out, figure out what you’ll need to achieve on the financial side to meet your lifestyle goals.

2. Scheduling

Effective scheduling is critical for freelancers to maintain efficiency. Even if you entered the freelancing field to getaway from the day-to-day grind and routine of employed work, don’t feel like scheduling is the enemy. By allotting specific amounts of time to certain tasks each day, you’ll find that you complete them much more efficiently than if you were to cruise through the day completing tasks ad hoc.

3. To-do list

Photo by Mattox
A technique which I find works particularly well and know has worked well for many others is creating a list of to-do list the night before. Before you go to bed, list down the six most important things you need to do the next day and order them by importance. This will get your mind working sub-consciously the night before and you’ll be focused as soon as you wake up. Get to work on the first item on your list and stick with it until it’s completed or until you can’t work on it anymore, only then move on to the next item. Don’t stress if you don’t get all six done, because if you can’t complete them following this method you wouldn’t have been able to in any other way. Completing tasks this way will allow you to focus on one thing at a time which is much more powerful than trying to multi-task.

4. Take yourself seriously

Just because you have the opportunity to work in your pj’s with a bowl of fruit loops in front of you doesn’t mean your job is any less important than one which requires you to suit up and eat sushi at lunch. By taking the mindset that your role is somehow less important than others you’ll only sabotage your own productivity and be more inclined to procrastinate, hence reducing efficiency.

5. Refresh

Take some timeout, both long and short:

Short breaks – Utilizing short breaks hourly will not only help you stay fresh and motivated, it can have considerable health benefits.

Long breaks – While you might feel like you need to be on the ball every day of the week, most people find they get more out of a 5 or 6 day working week with a rest day to help rejuvenate in between.

Vacations – Organizing a getaway for a week or so every few months is not only a great way to recharge your batteries, it will help inspire new ideas.

6. How have other people done it?

There’s a strong chance that someone has already blazed the trail you’re following. Look at how people in a similar role to yours have done things and learn from them. It’s not copying and it’s not being unoriginal – it’s being smart. If you can learn from the mistakes that other people have made then it saves you the time and cost of making them yourself.

7. Pareto’s law – 80% of success from 20% of effort

A trap many freelancers fall into is spending a bunch of time on tasks that deliver no value to them. These time drainers can come in many forms: marketing efforts, crappy clients who pay little and demand too much, doing things yourself that would be better outsourced. The key is identifying the tasks that deliver most value to you and focusing on these. The time wasters can be hard to let go of (it’s a bit like throwing away junk from the cupboard) but you’ll be much happier once you do, and have more time to focus on the things that deliver value, monetarily and in satisfaction.

8. Analyze how you spend a day

Dedicate a day where every 15 minutes you write down what you’re doing. It might sound like a real pain in the butt, but it can be quite amazing (and disturbing) to see how much time you waste on trivial tasks and procrastination. Performing an honest evaluation of how you spend your time will allow you to cut out a lot of the things that are wasting your time.

9. Consider power naps

Many people associate napping during the day with laziness – however a short power nap during the day can have amazing positive effects on your productivity. By using the correct power napping techniques you’ll gain a lot more than you would from pounding coffees and red bulls all day.

10. Quit WOW

If World of Warcraft or some other time killer like Farmville is taking precedence over servicing your valuable clients, then maybe it’s time to make a clean-cut. Put it in perspective and make the decision.

Conclusion

These tips aren’t hard and fast. Everyone is different and will require a different system to achieve maximum efficiency. The best thing you can do is to commit to testing out these techniques consistently over the next few weeks and seeing how they work for you. The key is to take note of results and be honest with yourself about what is and isn’t working. If you can do this you’ll be able to come up with a customized system that will have you delivering maniac levels of productivity in no time.
How have you increased your efficiency as a freelancer?

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Many of you would not be aware that the Muslim community is entitled by law to teach Islam at Victorian public (govt) schools, both primary and secondary. The law allows for the teaching of Special Religious Instruction (SRI) by faith groups at government schools, and this has been the case for decades. It is estimated that there are between 20,000 - 25,000 Muslim students at public schools, and only a tiny fraction are receiving Islamic SRI. Unfortunately, you can count on one hand the number of public schools where Islamic SRI is being offered.

It would be safe to assume that a large percentage of these 20,0000 - 25,000 children would have very little opportunity to learn about Islam. In reality, Islamic SRI would represent the only means through which these children can be taught about the basics of their faith, including Islam's main tenets, values, and practices.

There are several reasons for this absence of Islamic SRI at public schools, with the two main ones being the general lack of community awareness, and the lack of infrastructure to be able to deliver Islamic SRI. We are now trying hard to address these two issues. A number of committed people are working on this program, but we want to start offering Islamic SRI from today and we need a lot of help.

There are several ways that you can support and participate in this very important initiative :

Finally Microsoft has unvail its brand new OS Windows 8 Developer Preview and allowing everyone to pre test it features and get the feel of it. At Maximus IT we are thrilled to let our reader know all about Windows 8 which just been unleased for testing,

Speed Tests: It’s Faster than windows 7 in almost every way, Firstly the boot time -Windows 8's boot times were significantly faster than Windows 7's, Microsoft made a big effort in. I would get boot times more comparable to Windows 7, and sometimes it would be fast as testing on Virtual Box. We will wait and see how that changes in a year when the final version come up, but for right now, we're going to assume that this goal of fast boot times is resulting in some pretty hefty speed increases.

On the first startup on my HP Laptop , I had to give the computer a name, choose a Wi-Fi router, and configure settings. after that it went to do recommended update and security options and by default it allowing programs to use my name, location, and user pictures.

Windows 8 Login Screen

Next step is setting up a Google Chrome and sign into or create a Windows Live account by this way your apps can connect with Microsoft cloud services like SkyDrive storage, Hotmail, and any other connected services you’ve connected—Facebook and twitter and LinkedIn accounts . Once logging in, the new Windows 8 took a couple minutes to prepare my Computer.

When I reboot and start up again, I saw the lock screen image, and next to it is my login screen. Windows 8 Developer Preview have an innovative new option in that is to create a picture password in which you touch and swipe parts of an image to log in. very cool yea.

Windows 8 Developer Preview is combined desktop, laptop and tablet operating system, it is designed to go from tablets to big screens, from portable notebooks to big gaming systems and business desktops.

We also tested Windows Phone 7 Metro-style touch interface of live tiles, the Metro programming model for building web apps and native apps that run full screen and share information. Its basically what you use every day on you smart phone making your computing experience similar.

Windows 8 another features is to put two apps on screen side by side, and the traditional Windows desktop for when you need richer apps like the ones we've been using in Windows for years.

Windows 8 interface: You can customise both the image you see on the Windows 8 Lock screen and the details of unread emails and missed instant messages that it shows. And you can pin desktop apps such as Office or Task Manager, and even a link to the desktop, to the Lock screen.You can group tiles together - giving groups a name or leaving them blank - and make any tile single or double width. Just swipe the tile up a little to get the option to change the size, unpin the app or uninstall it completely. You'll be able to do that for pre-installed Metro software too (which is what Microsoft is encouraging OEMs to bundle on new Windows 8 PCs).

Windows 8 Log in

As well as moving a tile to a new location by dragging it, you can also drag it up to the top of the screen with one finger and hold it there while you swipe across the screen to get to where you want to drop it - a much easier way of dealing with a long list of tiles. Future builds of Windows 8 will also enable you to pinch to zoom out so you can see all the tiles on screen at once, and rearrange groups at the same time.

Once you launch apps, you can use gestures to arrange them as you do in Nokia N8 or other Smart phones. Swiping from the left switches to the next app, but you can also swipe and drag to put two apps on a screen side by side - and one of those can be the Windows desktop.

Windows 8 Log in

Touch keyboard: Windows 8 has two touch keyboards for ultimate mobility and flexibility. An improved, full-sized touch keyboard with larger buttons and a unique thumb keyboard make it easy to use your computer on the go. Whether you’re walking around or sitting down, it’s more comfortable and natural to type using your thumbs when the keyboard is split.

The touch keyboard in Windows 8 includes several features to speed up your typing and make it more accurate. Improved keyboard technology is designed to minimize inaccurate key strokes while automatically correcting mistyped words without slowing you down. To make typing more efficient, Windows suggests words on screen as you type, allowing you to choose the suggested word with a single tap.

Your apps come with you:When you sign in with your connected Microsoft account to another PC running Windows 8, your Metro style apps and settings go with you, so it’s just like you’re using your own PC. You’ll also be signed in to all of the websites you were signed in to. Your connected account is like a portable, personal PC that appears on any Windows 8-based PC you’re using. You’re always ready to pick back up where you left off no matter where you are.

Apps can work together: Apps can communicate with each other in Windows 8. So, if you want to send pictures in email, and they’re in different places like Facebook, Flickr, or on your hard drive, you can easily pick and send the ones you want. Windows 8 provides a single view.

Internet Explorer 10: the web by touch Metro style Internet Explorer 10 provides a fast and fluid touch-first browsing experience that’s all about your sites, making them feel increasingly more app-like. With faster performance, leading security protection, more hardware acceleration, and site-ready HTML5 support, IE10 continues to allow developers to build a richer and more beautiful web.

Windows 8 in Virtual Box

More for power users: If you want to push the limits of your PC experience, we’ve invested in the features most often used by power users. We redesigned Windows Explorer and Task Manager to greatly enhance productivity, and developed new, flexible options for multi-monitor setups.

File management with ease: With enhanced Windows Explorer to make file navigation and common file management tasks straightforward. The ribbon organizes Explorer’s rich functionality, surfacing previously buried features and has new commands like ISO mounting and single-window move or copy. We’ve brought back a long-lost favourite: the Up button. We’ve also introduced a new enhanced copy experience so you can view and manage all of your file operations in one place.

Task Manager: The new Task Manager is your easy-to-use, all-in-one dashboard for monitoring and controlling your PC so you always know what’s going on with it. The information is presented in color-coded tiles to help draw your eye to items that are using the bulk of a resource. You can keep track of your system efficiently and in real-time, taking advantage of summary graphs and detailed information on processes, applications, and history. You can see the services associated with each process on one screen.

Windows 8 Task Manager

Security:Smart Screen filter: SmartScreen is a set of sophisticated technologies to help protect you from malicious websites and programs. Whether you’re downloading or running a new program on the desktop, Smart Screen has you covered. SmartScreen continues to provide protection from phishing and socially engineered malware attacks using URL and application reputation and removes unnecessary warnings for programs and publishers with an established reputation. To add another layer of protection, SmartScreen is now integrated with program launch to screen programs downloaded from the web. It also shows new warnings before higher-risk programs can run and will block known malware.

Windows Defender: To ensure legitimate antimalware protection to all users, Windows 8 provides Windows Defender. It monitors and protects against viruses and other malware in real time and detects and removes malware if your computer becomes infected. With Windows 8, third-party antimalware software becomes even more effective: by loading approved antimalware drivers during the boot process, antimalware software can start from a known good state and continue its vigilant watch over your PC from that point on.

Secured boot: Secured boot stops malware in its tracks and makes Windows 8 significantly more resistant to low-level attacks. Even when a virus has made it onto your PC, Windows will authenticate boot components to prevent any attempt to start malware before the operating system is up and running. If the component isn’t correctly signed by Microsoft, Windows will begin remediation and start the Windows Recovery Environment, which will automatically try to fix your operating system.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Bangladesh NEXT. Next IT Destination:
The demographic advantage, the stability and the social developments have set the platform for Bangladesh to emerge as the one of the next large players of global service outsourcing market. As outsourcing costs in traditional countries like China, India and Philippines are rising dramatically and global clients are increasingly looking for diversification of sourcing portfolio, Bangladesh is surely the Next best alternative.
Bangladesh possesses one of the most attractive population demography in the world. This is a country powered by youth. In terms of number of youth population, Bangladesh is among top ten countries of the world and top five within Asia. This unique age demography makes Bangladesh as one of the best attractive country for service outsourcing (ITES/BPO, Software, Call centre etc.).

A significant portion of the youth population is proficient in English. Within the non-speaking developing countries, Bangladesh education system has the 3rd largest number of enrollment in English courses at secondary and higher secondary level. Because of this second-language advantage, the country is surely one of the natural choices for service outsourcing for English speaking North American countries.

Adoption to new digital lifestyle among young generation is very high. The urban youth are quite tech savvy and always keep pace with different modern tech-driven lifestyle updates (e.g. in terms of Facebook users, Bangladesh ranks within top twenty in the world. The country already has over 2 million facebook users).

Over 10 million (around 7 percent of total population) citizens of the country work outside the country (4th highest in the world), in different parts of the world. This has contributed significantly in cross-cultural adaptability skill of the professionals. A significant number of the overseas people are technology professionals. They are working successfully in different leading technology companies at different parts of the world. This technology skilled diaspora can also be instrumental in outsourcing boom (as it has been the case in India).

Within the country, the rapid technological development in recent years has set the tone for significant growth in technology driven service industry. Mobile growth in the country is one of the highest in the developing world. Major technology infrastructure like country-wide fiber connectivity, Wi-Max broadband, 3G are being implemented at quick pace.

During last few decades, the country has achieved significant social sector development, particularly in education and health. As recognition of this, Bangladesh has recently won UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Award.

During last decade, Bangladesh economy has emerged as one of the most stable developing economies of Asia. Helped by very strong growth in both export and foreign remittance, the local currency (Taka) is one of the most stable currencies.

Powered by people Over 25,000 IT engineers are working in over 600 software and IT service companies: around 150 of these companies are specialized in serving overseas clients.

Specialized IT Education in Bangladesh is well established at the graduation and post graduation levels. Over 90 universities and 700 colleges across the country offer IT education programs. Every year, over 6,000 IT graduates come out of these universities and colleges.

A large part of these IT graduates also possess global IT vendor certifications (e.g., from Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Sun) on top of their academic degrees.

Excellence of IT workforce from Bangladesh is a well-accepted fact at home and abroad. Over 10,000 IT professionals from Bangladesh are working successfully in various IT companies in USA including Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Sun, Oracle, Texas Instruments, Cisco, Nortel, and Lucent – to name a few.

Bangladesh Government and the IT industry have taken up aggressive plans to scale up the number of IT workforce to meet the increasing demand. The plans include national skills assessment and enhancement programs for IT professionals, increasing the number of yearly IT graduates to 10,000 and development of outsourcing focused specific skill sets.

Government Support to IT outsourcing: Software and IT Services have been declared by the Government as a ‘High Priority’ export sector.

All Software and IT Services companies including those having foreign ownerships have been exempted from Income Tax until 2011.

Special government sponsored long-term equity fund and short term working capital financing are offered to IT companies.

Since 1996, Government has been allowing zero/low tariff for computers and other capital goods required for software industry.

Special Hi-Tech and Software Technology Parks are being built by the government to facilitate all the infrastructural supports needed by outsourcing companies.

ICT Policy 2009 has been approved by the Govt. of Bangladesh in June 2009

A Roadmap to transform Bangldesh into ‘Digital Bangldesh’ has also been formed
know more at:Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS)

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Conceptboard is another great web app for online teamwork and collaboration.Among many features, you can draw directly on a board for your team to see, drag files directly on to your concept boards, write over your documents, leave comments easily for others to see, invite colleagues and clients to participate and even work on it using your iPad. The free account gives you a lot of options and is worth a look.

Got 15 minutes? Give Ruby a shot right now!

Ruby is a programming language from Japan (available at ruby-lang.org ) which is revolutionizing the web. The beauty of Ruby is found in its balance between simplicity and power.http://tryruby.org is an extremely well produced site for anyone who is interested in learning about Ruby on Rails. It has a number of different lessons that teach you the basics in a new and interesting way. Enjoy.

Friday, August 5, 2011

The central bank has allowed online transactions for the country's information and communication technology (ICT) firms aiming to expedite ICT related businesses, officials said on September 02, 2010.Under the new provisions, banks are allowed to remit up to US$ 10,000 on behalf of ICT or software firms in a calendar year for the purposes of international alliances like software registration fee, domain registration and hosting fees and server maintenance fee without prior approval of the Bangladesh Bank (BB).

ICT businessmen welcomed the BB's latest move, saying that it would facilitate their businesses through allowing internet transactions."Bangladesh opens a new chapter of e-business allowing internet transactions," Chairman of the committee on international marketing of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) Shameem Ahsan told the FE.

He also said it would help to create new employment opportunity through boosting ICT related businesses including software exporting across the world.

Within the limit of $10,000 in foreign exchange authorised dealer banks, officially known as ADs, may issue international card (IC) favoring a nominated official of ICT or software firm for US$1000 with the recommendation of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), the central bank said in a circular, issued Thursday.

"As a part of ongoing liberalisation of BB, We've incorporated internet/ online transactions particularly for ICT firms into our regulations. We hope that it would be a milestone for digital transaction of the country's banking industry," a BB senior official told the FE.The IC may be refilled for another $1000 subject to production of documents showing the fact that the previous transactions were carried out for the purposes."The ADs shall ensure that the aggregate amount of refills of IC and outward payment through other means do not exceed $10,000 in a calendar year," the circular added.In the context of web based trade, the foreign buyer settles the payment through international credit cards (ICC) using internet/web.

To accommodate such internet/web generated payment to beneficiary account, it has been decided to allow ADs to work as 'Acquiring Banks' for realisation of internet/web generated payment favouring BASIS member ICT/software firms registered and operating in Bangladesh.

"…ADs shall have to comply with the applicable regulation of foreign exchange transactions, AML/CFT, payment and settlement systems and other relevant laws/regulations in force and report the transactions with monthly returns to Bangladesh Bank in the relevant schedules/statements," it noted.

Bangladesh has carved its place among the world's best destinations for IT outsourcing, largely thanks to its low cost, according to a study by a leading research and consulting firm.

Bangladesh usually offers an attractive cost proposition for the investors, as its low salary level and low-cost of living are ideal for jobs that are commoditised and have low risk, said the study conducted by Gartner (It delivers technology research to global technology business leaders) in its annual listing of top countries for IT outsourcing globally.

“Bangladesh is an emerging country from an offshore location perspective, but ranks poorly in language, infrastructure and data and intellectual property security,” the research said.

“Although it offers a good cost proposition, the government has to address many issues such as education, infrastructure and data security or IP protection in order to propel the top ranks,” said Gartner, which has put Bangladesh on its list of top 30 destinations for global IT outsourcing for 2010-11.

This is the first time that Bangladesh has been listed in the top ranking by any global research company on IT outsourcing and has been placed on par with China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam in Asia.

“The achievement is significant given the growing potential of Bangladesh as an attractive IT outsourcing destination,” said Mahboob Zaman, president of the Bangladesh Association for Software and Information Services (BASIS), at a press conference in the capital yesterday.

“However, it would require proper government policy support in addressing the shortcomings identified in the study to keep up the same rating,” he added.

Bangladesh has debuted in the list along with eight other countries that have made it for the first time to the Top 30 of the Gartner ranking.

“The country offers an attractive cost proposition, given its low salary levels and low cost of living,” said the study, which took into account ten separate criteria for rating the individual destinations.

The criteria include language, government support, labour pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost, political and economical environment, cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity as well as data and Intellectual Property Security and Privacy.

Bangladesh has been ranked 'very good' in the criteria of cost, according to the Gartner findings while rating 'fair' in all criteria apart from the areas of language, infrastructure and data and IP security and privacy.

Noting that Bangladesh's cost of living is one of the lowest in the world, the report found that the median salary per annum of a software engineer or developer in Bangladesh is about $5,070, while the median salary of a senior software engineer is $7,300 and that of an IT manager is $9,734.

“In recent years, the government has taken several bold steps in boosting the country's IT industry, which has been partly reflected in this rating,” said State Minister for Science and ICT Yeafish Osman.“Most recently, the office of electronic signature certifying authority has been set up for authorising a digital signature system, while a cyber security policy is going to be formulated and cyber tribunals are going to be formed to address the cyber crime issue,” he added.

The Gartner report finds the country's PC penetration and teledensity 'low' and the overall English language competency 'poor' while stating that the essential infrastructure elements such as electricity, airways and rail networks are not up to the global standard.

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Faysal Hasan is a IT System Engineer has with a passion for security. He worked in information technology service delivery for more than 10 years. He received his Bachelor in IT from Southern Cross University, Australia and has earned numerous technical certifications throughout his career including Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE), CCNA Cyber Security and ITIL etc.